A legal challenge has been made to flood defence proposals for the Bognor Regis area. The judicial review will be heard at the High Court this month.

It has been launched by an unidentified individual against the Environment Agency’s draft plans to protect the coastline from the Pagham boundary to the River Arun against flooding.

The agency has proposed abandoning Climping two years after its final strategy is published because it says each £1 spent on the work would produce only 20p of benefits.

Roger Spencer, Arun District Council’s principal engineer coastal, told the council’s overview select committee on Tuesday: “The case going to judicial review is whether or not the Environment Agency and, by implication, the district council as an interested party, should have gone out to public consultation when it did.

“The implication, if we are found to be in error, is that we will have to go through another round of public consultation.”

This was unlikely to involve Arun in any greater expense, he said. But it would delay the final approval of the strategy, if that was the decision reached, by three to five months.

Arun’s cabinet will be asked to approve the final draft of the strategy at its meeting on October 18 in spite of the High Court case.

This would put the council at odds with the agency’s timetable because of the need to deal with the legal matter, said Mr Spencer, but it was important the council made a decision.

Meanwhile, Climping residents have met the Environment Agency to discuss how they can help pay for works to protect their village.

Mr Spencer said it looked likely they would spend £7,000 on some basic works. The agency would contribute £4,000. “This is not the full-blown scheme for Climping. It is just enough money to extend the life of the defences and keep them ticking over.

“It will give more confidence to the people living there, but it is not the fully-designed scheme one would expect from an Environment Agency policy.”

The agency also agreed at the meeting, chaired by MP Nick Gibb, to fulfil its obligations under two legal agreements it has with a local landowner regarding ongoing protection to areas along the Climping frontage.

Climping’s residents were angered in June 2009 when the agency revealed its draft strategy to abandon the village’s sea defences.

It says no properties will be lost to the sea after a century but a small number of homes around Atherington are likely to suffer a heightened risk of flooding.

Story in Chichester Today

Hundreds of homes could be at risk from flooding after plans to improve sea defences were blocked by a conservation group.

Natural England has opposed Arun District Council’s move to transport 30,000 square metres of shingle to Pagham, near Chichester, from the nearby Church Norton spit.

It decided the work would have a detrimental effect on the environment and wildlife of the area.

The £450,000 scheme would have helped bolster the beach near Pagham Yacht Club to reduce the risk of flooding.

But now the council faces an even larger bill and potential delays as it is forced to try to import the shingle from out at sea.

The delay means that the work, which was due to be carried out in September, may not start until next year, leaving hundreds of homes open to the elements.

Ray Radmall, the chairman of Pagham Parish Council, said: “We urgently need a sustainable long term solution to Pagham’s recent erosion problem.

“The Arun District Council scheme would have bought crucial time for essential studies to be carried out in the quest for such a solution.

“Just when we thought that a first step in that process was being put in place the rug has been pulled from under us. We must all re-double our efforts to overcome this setback.”

If the north of the Pagham harbour entrance is allowed to erode, 160 homes built on the shingle bank would be at risk.

It would expose the harbour defences to waves and threaten a further 350 properties as well as flooding more than 300 hectares of land.

The district council said it was working to try to get defences in place by the winter.

Roger Elkins, Arun’s deputy leader, said: “We had been working with a range of partners and were aware of the importance of the environmental designations which relate to the protected species of birds in this area and the formation of the spit itself.

“We had ensured that these issues were taken account of in our study of the area.

“It is very frustrating to find ourselves in a situation where we need shingle to protect the residents of Pagham but we are having to get it from offshore, at much greater cost, when there is a huge quantity of shingle sitting just a few hundred metres away.”

Story by Samuel Underwood in The Argus